


OA, l%^9. 




Glass L£Zk 
Book__.5JZ4- 



?a9 



AN 



1)1 J h 



DELIVERED 



ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1829, 



THE CELEBRATION OF 



AMERICAN IJVDEPEI^DE^J^CB, 



CITY OF BOSTON. 



BY JAMES T. AUSTIN. 



BOSTON: 

JOHN H. EASTBUKN, CITY PRINTER. 

1829. * 



ORATIOIV, 



A PKOPLE, satisfied with hereditary honor, might repose on 
the large inheritance derived from the fathers of the American 
revolution. Providence assigned to them a duty of immeas- 
urable interest, and endowed them with feelings, manners and 
principles for hs successful accomplishment. 

In their adventurous courage chivalry revived again ; and the 
armies of liberty rivalled in glory the soldiers of the cross. Their 
self devotion repeated the examples of apostolic zeal in a cause 
almost as holy, and joined in kindred veneration the martyrs of 
freedom and the evangelists of faith. Their country combined 
and concentrated every motive of action, and enforced the obedi- 
ence of their souls, even when she seemed to require them, like 
the Patriarch of Israel, to bind their ovvm children on the altar 
of patriotism, and with their own hands to offer an oblation dear- 
er than life. 

But the declaration of national independence — their enduring 
■claim on the gratitude of posterity and the admiration of man- 
kind — is not to be considered as the commencement of Amer- 
ican liberty. More justice is due to the earlier settlers of Mas- 
sachusetts, and more liberality to the country whence they sprang. 

Our ancestors came here freemen, and by the blessing of 
God neither they nor their posterity ever were slaves. 



Before they left the fragile bark, which bore on its deck the 
fortunes of a future empire, they framed a constitution of gov- 
ernment suited to their humble condition and their better hopes. 
When they appointed Mr. John Carver to be their Governor, 
for the truly republican reason that " he would not adventure 
upon any thing of moment, without consent of the rest;" when 
they placed all military rule in the hands of a "gentleman very ex- 
pert in matters of that nature, one Capt. IMiles Standish, by name, 
by whom they were all willing to be ordered in these concerns," 
they established their little commonwealth on the principles of 
civil liberty. When subsequently they assembled to carry on 
the business of legislation, " every man being a member of the 
General Court," there was a practical illustration of a pure de- 
mocracy, which convenience and not compulsion induced them 
afterwards to change. 

Their allegiance to the British Crov/n was little more 
than a convenient compromise to pay easily for the pro- 
tection they required ; and hung so lightly that they 
would not permit the royal flag to float in their capital, because 
the cross in the standard of St. George ofiended their scrupu- 
lous consciences with its emblem of popery. 

Laws were made by their own delegates, expounded by their 
own cidzens, and generally administered without cause of com- 
plaint. No man was harmed in body or estate, but by judg- 
ment of his peers. The whole subject of ecclesiastical polity 
was under dicir controul. Education, the great bulwark of rational 
liberty, was under their sole direction, and was so early, tho- 
roughly, permanently and generously provided for, that it may 
be doubted if the vast improvement of the human mind be here 
owing to any one cause more decidedly than to the wise liberal- 
ity of the founders of New-England. For more than a century 
and a half they enjoyed all the immunities of freedom, which 
their local situation and their spaise population would admit, and 
when at length the hand of arbitrary power was ontslrclrlied to 
oppress them, it found intelligence, wliich could not be deceived, 
resolution, which could not be broken down, confidence, which 



could not be conquered ; physical strength in awful disparity, to 
be sure, with their formidable foe, but directed by a high moral 
feeling, which is not to be measured by any mere human stand- 
ard, for it is the instrument of Providence for tlie accomplish- 
ment of its grandest designs. 

Resistance began, when oppression began. We do not know, 
said one of the leaders of the people, that this matter is deter- 
mined upon — hut the report of it ought to alarm us. 

In the official enumeration of the colonies' complaints, none 
are mentioned beyond the administration of the then reigning mon- 
arch. There were therefore no chains to be destroyed, for none 
had been forged ; — no yoke to be broken, for their gallant spirits 
had never bowed themselves to bondage. Danger existed only 
in prospect — The Stamps were sent back again — The ocean had 
drunk up the tea — The soldiers of the King had retired from this 
place at the voice of the people — The sympathy of a continent 
baffled the vengeance of the ministry, and the rays of royal in- 
dignation concentrated upon Boston, "illumined, but could not 
consume her." Mihtary force attempted to compel submission, 
and lives were lost; but the blood that was shed, hke dragon's 
teeth, sprung up armed anew. The musket, that had rusted since 
the French war, was brightened again ; and the bayonet, if there 
were one, drawn from its worm-eaten scabbard. The little gun 
powder on hand was collected into arsenals, and sand deposited in 
barrels to prevent the enemy from knovving how very httle there 
was. Valor supplied the place of experience. Against the 
veterans of the King, rich in military equipment, and proud of 
the blazonry of arms, a half fed and worse clad yeomanry made 
bare the sword of the Lord and of Washington. 

We venerate the men of the revolution, for renouncing the 
colonial character, when its humble condition no longer comport- 
ed with their dignity and honor ; but we should not be unjust to 
the British Government, whose gentle and tolerant authority 
had prepared the way to indcjienuence. The spirit, which sus- 
tained it, grew out of habits and manners, which the mother 



G 

country had fostered. The intelligence which conducted the 
revolution, was the result of laws and institutions she had en- 
couraged ; and the moral sentiment of the people, if it had un- 
proved on her example, was supported by her character. 

We are proud that the restraints of society were unbroken in 
the wildest commotions of civil war ; — that the record of those 
days is not as elsewhere, a catalogue of crimes ; that religion 
maintained her authority ; that her temples were not deserted, 
nor her ministers neglected, nor her duties forgotten — Such a 
state of public feeling, such propriety of public manners could 
be formed among colonists only under the influence of liberal gov- 
ernment ; they could not be found among a people, whose spirit 
had been depressed by slavery, or broken down beneath the fet- 
ters of despotism. 

Had these States been the colonies of France, we might have 
been as dull and insensible as the Canadian peasantry, and quite 
as incapable of freedom. Had they been placed under Spanish 
domination we might have struggled through the dark night of 
ignorance in all the horrors of a gloomy superstition, and if at 
some period auspicious to the enterprise, a temple was erected 
to freedom, instead of the intelligence, and truth, and moderation 
and piety, which are the only acceptable offerings at its shrine, 
its altars would have streamed with a constant sacrifice of blood. 

Not only did civil liberty exist here anterior to national inde- 
pendence, but the actual independence of Massachusetts was an- 
terior to that of the nation. 

Massachusetts is the mother of the revolution. Her efforts 
in its commencement are too honorable to be omitted in the her- 
aldry of her fame. Earliest and alone, without aid, without allies, 
connections or confederacy, singly, by her own will, she dissolved 
the royal power within her own territory and over her own peo- 
ple, and assumed to herself the prerogatives of independence. 

When it was yet unknown how far the generosity of her sister 
colonies would support her in her extremest need, when it was 
not impossible that ancient loyally might identify resistance with 



rebellion, when it was uncertain how wide might be the desolation 
of the storm to which she exposed herself, and how fatal the 
consequences of a disaster beyond her own resources to repair, 
by a magnanimous effort of resolution — by the force of that attach- 
ment to freedom which education and law and habit and the re- 
corded example of her pilgrim fathers had infused into the very 
soul of her people, she broke from the ancient connexion, and 
achieved her own independence, unassisted and alone. 

When her Congress of delegates assembled at Watertown, in 
defiance of the royal chai'ter, and spurned the representative of 
the crown, and assumed the powers of civil government, and 
took possession of the public treasury, and levied taxes, and es- 
tablished a navy, and commissioned that American vessel of war, 
that first captured a British Ship on the ocean, and erected 
maritime courts, and appointed Judges, and administered justice 
to belligerent and neutral by the law of nations, and raised an 
army, and nominated officers, and gathered soldiers under the 
pine-tree banner of IVIassachusetts, and poured out a rich liba- 
tion of blood on the battle-field of freedom, the colonial charac- 
ter was at an end. The revolution had begun. The State was 
then free, sovereign and independent. 

It might be that the strength of a confederated continent 
would come to her assistance. She might hope for the sup- 
port, and she received the support, the full, generous, noble sup- 
port of the country ; but she began the revolution alone, — she 
took tlie first step in the march of independence resolutely, fear- 
lessly, unaided and alone. 

Yield to tlie honorable emulation of our friendly competitors 
all that may be challenged by their gallantry and zeal. Con- 
cede the debatable propositions that the first suggestion of com- 
mittees of correspondence originated with them ; that their 
chivalrous spirits projected the grand Congress of 1776. 

While those committees were discussing the great interests of 
the country, and before that Congress had assembled, Massachu- 
setts had ceased to be a colony of the crown. If the declara- 



8 

tlon of independence was moved for by the most eloquent of 
their ])atriots, and draughted by the most eminent of their states- 
men, independence itself was first established in Massachusetts, 
and its principles acted out by the humblest of our citizens. 

Bring to the imagination that band of determined men as- 
sembled at Watertown, unarmed and defenceless within cannon 
shot of a disciplined army; their fortunes in the camp of a military 
commander, whose dignity they had offended ; their persons liable 
to be seized and sent to Europe for trial as traitors ; their con- 
duct impeached in a public proclamation, and two of them pro- 
scribed as rebels whose offences were too heinous for the par- 
don of the King. Judge of their anxiety in that time that tried 
men's souls ; their immense responsibility to the country, whose 
destiny they directed ; to their children for the protection that 
was due to them ; to posterity for that political condition, w'hich 
would be a legacy of honor or of shame ; to their God before 
whom they were answerable, — and felt themselves answerable, 
for all the blood of a war they might accelerate or prevent. 
How indistinct their vision of the future even when a strong faith 
threw its light upon their soul. How difficult their task to keep 
up the courage of the timid, the hopes of the desponding, tlie 
strength of the feeble ; to enlighten the ignorant, restrain the 
rash, supply die destitute, and impart to all tlie pure motives, 
which consecrate success. Here was no mad ambition, no lust 
of power, no allurement of interest, no scheme of personal dis- 
tinction. Few of them are remembered in history. Yet these 
are they, whose light gave promise of a coming dawn. If they 
recede from the general gaze, it is in the noon tide splendor of a 
brighter day. 

They set as sets the morning star, which goes 
Not down behind the darkened west, nor hides • 
Obscured among the tempests of the sky. 
But melts away into the light of heaven. 

Had these men proved incompetent to the task, the battle for 
diat generation would have been lost when it began. Indepen- 



9 

dence might indeed have been obtained, for no foreign power 
could long hold a continent in its grasp ; but the struggle must 
have been made in this age, and not that; and the desolation of 
civil war which marks the times of our forefathers, would have 
been the melancholy history of our own. 

Appropriate honors have ever been accorded to the states- 
men and soldiers of the revolution, yet it is not these classes 
alone that the successful issue of the conflict is chiefly to be at- 
tributed. The springs of the revolution lay deeper, and farther 
in the interior. It gushed not from one, or two great fountains. 
It rolled onward like our broad and fair rivers swollen by uni- 
versal accessions from every point in the vast territories through 
which they flow. There was a quiet, unobtrusive, determined 
and patient spirit among the people, which submitted to sacrific- 
es from devotion to liberty, and found a recompense for suiTer- 
ings in consciousness of duty. 

Let it be remembered that all the usual occupations of life 
were at a stand. Commerce was annihilated ; the fisheries de- 
stroyed ; agriculture deprived of her laborers ; the mechanic 
arts suspended ; the currency a depreciated paper, which 
mocked all calculations of mercantile acuteness ; the treasury '9 

empty ; credit at an end ; private fortunes embarrassed ; desti- .^ 

tution and want bringing up their spectacles of wo, and many a 
voice Hke the widow of Jerusalem exclaiming in agony, " as 
the Lord thy God liveth I have not a cake, but only a handful 
of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruise, and I am gather- 
ing two sticks that I may go in and dress it, for me and my son, 
that we may eat it and die." 

But there was a prophet's miraculous power in the spirit of 
patriotism. 

Famihes were fed, and children educated, and taxes paid, 
and recruits raised, and personal services rendered for precau- 
tion and defence — but how it was done — with what effort and 
exertion and toil and tears, may escape the researches of history 
and be lost to the gaze of the world, but it spreads itself to the 
2 



10 

observation of that beneficent being, who disdains not the hum- 
ble annals of the poor. 

Nor in recuring to those agitating times should the country 
forget its obhgations to the sex, whose influence in society is in 
proportion to civilization, and not the less powerful that it is unob- 
trusive and silent. 

The revolution depended on opinion, and they cultivated high 
sentiments of honor, and proud })rinciples of duty. It depended 
on enthusiasm, and their buoyant spirits reflected in wider cir- 
cles tlie sunshine of success, and threw the brighter coloring of 
their hopes on the clouds of misfortune. It depended on effort 
and exertion, and there was no useful employment too humble for 
their assiduity. It depended on sacrifices, and they made them. 
No disaster fell upon the State, but a full share of it pressed up- 
on them ; no victory imparted confidence to tlie country, but 
their joy was chastened by the private suffering with which it 
was purchased. The course of the revolution was through trou- 
ble, and grief, and priv^ation, and distress, and it was their pecu- 
liar office to soften the sorrows that could not be prevented, and 
to assuage the anguish of wounds, for which kindness is some- 
times a cure. 

In our hours of ease, 
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, 
And variable as the shade. 
By the light quivering aspen made ; 
When pain and anguish wring the brow, 
A min'string angel thou. 

We are too often ungenerous to our own fame. The story of 
the British matron following the fortunes of our northern cam- 
paign has been repeated with pathetic tenderness, till the world 
wonders at her constancy ; but the wives and mothers of the 
American soldiery are confounded with the common followers of 
an European camp, because history is too lofty, and poetry too 
fastidious to recount their interesting and romantic agency. 

But go to the survivors of those days. Ask the veteran chil- 
led now bv the frosts of aqce, who yet remembers those perilous 



11 

and piercing times, ask him at wiiat privation of domestic com- 
fort the haversack and the canteen of the recruit were furnished 
with their scanty store ? Ask him, vi^ho traversed the field of bat- 
tle, to quench the burning thirst of the wounded, and parted with 
their garments for bandages, and when the wine and oil were 
wanting, ministered in the humblest offices of humanity widi their 
tears ? Who found their weary way to the prison door of the 
captive, to cheer him with the kindness of friendly salutation ; 
whose generosity supplied the destitute hospital and fed the 
famishing, and watched the sick, and soothed the last moments 
of the dying soldier? He will tell you that these angel visits of 
mercy were paid by the daughters of the country. And the 
old man's countenance brightens at the recollection of their 
sympathy, and the animation of youth returns again as the im- 
mages of their benevolence croud freshly on his mind. 

It is decorous on suitable occasions, of which this anniversary 
is one, to open the treasury of ancestorial honor, and examine 
the splendid inheritance of glory derived from illustrious progen- 
itors ; not vainly to boast of it ; not wastefully to expend it ; not 
idly to rest upon its wealth ; but to indulge in solemn feelings 
of gratitude for the blessings it confers, and to recognize at the 
same time the obligations it imposes. 

We may gaze upon it with emotions of honest pride. It is a 
treasure incorruptable, immortal. We may feel a laudable self 
satisfaction in possessing it, with a hope that the virtue, which 
acquired, may be continued to preserve it ; that it will extend 
and multiply the bounties of a beneficent providence, when the 
rays of divine favor shine on oiu* country, and moderate the 
rage of the elements, when tempests, which spare no human in- 
institution, sweep through the land. 

We may feel some confidence that when contentions arise 
among the heirs of this noble inheritance, it may check the 
wantonness of dissention and repress even the acrimony of mu- 
tual reproach. 

When they, to whom was bequeathed this legacy of honor, — 



12 

as times change and parlies arise, and elections are to be carried 
— are charged with every possible violation of the political deca- 
logue; when some, it is successively said, submit to foreign influ- 
ence fatal to the public peace, or are corrupted by the examples of 
a demoralizing democracy; or are bewildered by the fascinations 
of imperial splendor; or are seduced by the meritricious charms 
of a titled aristocracy ; or when invidious distinctions are made 
at home to our desparagement, and a yankee state is spoken 
of as somethfng different from a patriot State ; or when in am- 
biguous phrase unnamed but distinguished leaders of the people 
are denounced as traitors to the constitution and the laws, the 
indignant genius of the land may proclaim with a voice as re- 
sistless as the elements in triumphant refutf-tion ; These are the 
descendants of the puritans of New England. These are the 
sons of the patriots of the revolution. These are they, 
born on the modern Marathon of the republic, nursed in the 
cradle of liberty, baptized at the altar of their country's inde- 
pendence ! 

Could such men forget the example of their ancestors, the 
claims of posterity, their duty to God, the yawning graves would 
give back again their antiquated dead, and multitudes of regen- 
erated patriots start from their unquiet repose to antedate the 
final retribution of mankind, and involve in premature conflagra- 
gration the worthless tenants of a useless world. 

But the glory, which belongs to the age of independence, 
would be remembered on these occasions with very litde utility, 
if it did not impress on each successive generation its own high 
responsibility. 

The duties of the citizen may change, but they never can 
cease. When great efforts are required large honors are the 
reward ; when the task is comparatively easy the neglect of it 
is followed with severe reprobation. The public treasure, like 
the private fortune of individuals, cannot be secured without 
care, vigilance and discretion. It is exposed to the bad passions 
of the community, and must be surrounded by a rampart of as 
generous hearts as were concerned in procuring it. 



i3 

Disseiitions endr.iiger it. la the violence of party zeal altars 
are erected to strange Gods, and the true worship is neglected. 
Competition ensues not to advance the interests of the State, but 
to promote the success of a party ; not for the prosperity of the 
people by wise laws, but the gratification of individuals by lu- 
crative office. 

Parlies will exist in a republic, for were there is aright of pri- 
vate judgment there will be a difference of opiniofi. Sparks 
stricken off in collision fall on matter inflamable enough to blaze 
always with fierceness, and sometimes with danger. But the 
materials are not inexhaustible. It is not the holy fire, which 
burns without being consumed. The tendency of party strife to 
cease in one form and revive in another is the compensating 
power that prevents its producing the ravages it threatens. The 
ever varying interests and the multiplied circumstances of polit- 
ical excitement in an active and enlightened community pre- 
vent any dominion over the public mind for a period long enough 
to derange it. — The restless ingenuity of dissention traces out 
the lines of party with as much earnestness as if the record was 
to remain for ever, but the returning tide of time mocks this 
perishable industry, and smooths its shores for a nev/ impression^ 
equally interesting and equally transient. 

One set of circumstances form one combination of men, but 
another set arise, and the former confederacy have no common 
interest to combine them as partizans. New events bring old 
opponents into the same ranks, and their better acquaintance soft- 
ens former animosities, and reconciles conflicting opinions- 
Whoso endeavors to prolong the strife, beyond the existence of 
the causes whence it sprang, does violence to the spirit of the 
constitution, and impairs the principles of civil liberty. 

Gur history is replete with occurrences, which excited the 
rage, and almost the madness of rival factions, until their tempo- 
rary importance yielded to others that seemed at the time quite 
as formidable. 

Lidependence was not determined upon by universal consents 



14. 

There were men ; — good men too, — who expected defeat, and 
would not encourage resistance. But are there any who would 
now draw the permanent lines of a party between the descendants 
of the Tories and the Rebels, the Loyalists and Republicans of 
1776. The constitution wasproposed to a people divided in almost 
equal numbers on its fundamental provisions; but the original caus- 
es of dissatisfaction are forgotten by all parties, while some restless 
spirits, who call themselves its friends, are incessantly proposing 
alterations which never perplexed the controversy of its contem- 
porary critics. 

The French revolution, the British Treaty, the decrees of 
Napoleon, the orders in council, our own embargo, non inter- 
course and war, multiplied causes of quarrels and mutual re- 
proach. But the revolution has burnt out ; the treaty has ex- 
pired ; the Emperor is dead ; the orders are repealed. And 
the embargo, non intercourse and war have gone down to one 
common grave together. 

These were topics of fierce controversy between republicans 
and federalists. But the causes of the quarrel have ceased, 
and the parties to it have changed. The majority of the active 
men of the present day know as little, and care as little about 
their details, as they do about the prosecution of the Quakers or 
the persecution of the witches in the early history of New Eng- 
land — And an attempt to new marshal the ranks of republicans 
and federalists, as in other days, is as idle and hopeless as to 
revive here that grave dispute, which the historian of Lilliput 
informs us shook to its centre that mighty commonwealth, 
Whether when a man was about to eat an egg, it should be first 
broken on the big end, or the little end of the shell ? 

Some part of the acrimony of past contention may still linger 
in the recollection of the comparatively few, who were most in- 
timately concerned in it; but even this is passing away. We 
do not believe the aspersions, which were cast on the eminent 
men of other days and earlier parties. We have sense enough 
to know, and candor enough to admit, that there were honest 



15 

men, and wise men, and great men in tlie ranks of both the con- 
tending parties ; and that there were qnestions at issue about 
which the most expanded minds and the most honest hearts 
might reasonably differ. Ahhough on these questions we ad- 
here to our original principles and still entertain our former sen- 
timents, and continue to believe that our former opponents were 
wrong, yet the practical consequences of such opinions are at 
an end. They belong to history and philosophy, and not to 
private passions or personal interest ; and they do not come, and 
they cannot be forced to come from their present insignificance, 
into causes for individual hostility or political division. 

We have now other causes of difference. We divide now 
about Tariffs and Rail roads, about reform and removals, about 
the mode of making a president and who he shall be. We are 
Adamsites or Jacksonites or follow the standard of some other 
one of the half dozen great men who divide public opinion. 
When the old republican party, which once in the integrity of 
its strength shook down its adversaries' battlements, and planted 
its standard on the Capitol, — and sent forth its triumphant de- 
tachments into every section of the country, is now called to- 
gether on some general election, it comes like the gathering of 
the clans on the highlands, where each has its own leader, and 
its own piper, and its own pibroch — mingling their discordant 
notes in one wild din of dissonant confusion. 

And the great federal party, which claims to have erected 
the palace of constitutional liberty, and to have swayed the 
sceptre of public opinion, and to have set, like a monarch on 
his throne, with an empire at their feet, comes out now on some 
gala occasion like a decayed gentleman, whose pride has lasted 
longer than his fortune ; and when he would assemble the re- 
tainers of his house to display its accustomed magnificence, finds 
his ancient tenantry are dead ; that the younger have sought 
other service ; that his equipments for the field are marvelously 
out of fashion ; and that only a few family servants remain to 
preserve the ancient honors of his rank, and to prove, amid the 



16 

dilapidation of his estates, their attachment to his character, ar 
their fidelity to his principles. 

The preservation of our free institutions depends on the dit 
semination of pure principles, sound morals and a general regari 
to honest and honorable conduct. There is in these respect 
an imperative duty on the guardians of public liberty. And al 
the people are its guardians. To this office they are appointee 
by that good providence, which placed them in a country o. 
freedom. They may not neglect it without the most alarming 
direlictiou of duty. Each man in the sphere of his influence, and 
each woman in her domestic circle is bound to this task by all 
the obligations of natural allegiance. 

A profligate people cannot long continue free. Public virtue 
is an inseperable condition of national freedom. To live under 
free institutions and wise laws is the highest and noblest condition 
of man in civil society, and cannot long be enjoyed by a people 
licentious and dissolute. Where the public mind is essentially 
corrupt, there is no capacity for the enjoyment of rational liberty. 
We need not look back upon antiquity for the collosal ruins of 
free states. History preserves the records of no empire to com- 
pare with this country in the extent of its civil and religious free- 
dom. Such a condition marks the progress of man, the expan- 
sion of his capacity, the enlargement of his moral power, by 
which self government becomes good government, and judge- 
ment, and reason, and integrity, and honor, and religion are the 
household troops of the republic. It is not vain glory to say, that 
the first practical experiment of this government was made by 
a people, by education and character morally and religiously in 
advance of the rest of mankind. None other could comprehend 
its value. None other can sustain it. If the age recedes in 
virtue it cannot advance in freedom. If a people do not pre- 
serve a high distinction for purity of manners, sound principles, 
love of order, and voluntary obedience to the laws, they can- 
not keep possession of an intelligent liberty. 

The sons and the daughters of this land, are called upon 



17 

therefore, by the most solemn adjurations of patriotism, to pre- 
serve the characteristic quahties of their honorable ancestry. If 
the strictness and simplicity of the puritans must yield to the re- 
finement and luxury of more opulent times, the integrity of their 
conduct; the steadiness of their faith, the temperance of their 
lives, their zeal for virtue and disinterested exertions for the 
public good are examples, the true spirit of which this com- 
munity must not abandon, if they would preserve the institutions 
of their fathers. A disposition to extravagant expenditure in 
dress, equipage and social intercourse, beyond the limits of in- 
dividual fortune, demands that public sentiment should be awa- 
kened to its ruinous consequences; and that blasting sin of in- 
temperance, which has threatened to become a national vice, 
should rouse the indignant eloquence of the patriot as well as 
the Christian, and be marked with equal reprobation by every 
lover of his country, and every worshipper of his God. 

The nature of our political institutions more than of any other 
nation, places a peculiar responsibihty on every individual citi- 
zen, because every one and all of them result from the aggre- 
gate of individual efi::it. Each man does a little, and no man 
does more. Single ballots select the public officers, and single 
actions form the pubhc character. This is the consequence of 
a popular government. But we talk of popular governments 
without always understanding the magnitude of the agency, by 
which they are moved. The power of the people, almost infi- 
nitely divisible in its component parts, is yet in its aggregate a 
new display of power, very feebly developed in the republics of 
antiquity, little knovv'n as yet beyond the territory of the United 
States. 

In other ages and other nations it was the monarch, or the 
nobles, or the clergy, or the rich, or the eminent, soldiers who 
had gained splendid victories — emperors, kings, consuls who 
concentrated upon themselves the glory of the nation, for whose 
benefit government was ordained and the people permitted to 
exist. With us the order is changed ; the government and its 
3 



IS 

magistrates, its civil functional ies and its military officers are but 
parts of the people, from whom they proceed, for whom they 
are created, and by whom they hvc, and move, and have a be- 
ing on the earth. And this great power is uncontrolled and mi- 
controUable but by God. It is illimitable in its strength, resist- 
less in its energy, awful in its passion, tremendous in its rage. 
It but breathes in its anger, and the institutions it had erected 
fall like the gigantic architecture of human skill, w hen the earth 
shakes the monuments of ages from her surface, and crumbles 
them into dust. 

He little understands the nature of a popular government, 
who affects to despise its democracy, or little knows his own in- 
significance when he attempts to resist it. All the tendencies of 
things among us enlarge and invigorate it. The advocates of 
strong government, if any remain, who thought it could be 
bound down by ingenious contrivances, may shudder at their 
imbecility of skill ; and more jealous republicans, who appre- 
hended that the ligatures provided in the Constitution were too 
tight, have not less occasion for alarm at the utter futility of 
their fears. 

Its giant strength shakes off the fetters that would bind it 
Like dew drops from the Lion's mane. 
Look for a single moment at some of the theoretical impedi- 
ments to its power. The Senate of the United States, intended 
to stand like an island among the waves and throw its beacon 
light of safety over their angry surges, is itself but a vessel on 
the same ocean, driven by all tlie impulses that move the ele- 
ments about it. The Executive, placed on an eminence, as was 
supposed, whence it might overlook the turbulent atmosphere at 
its feet, finds the clouds rising to its own level and must be borne 
away by the blast unless it 

Rides on the whirlwind and directs the storm. 

The House of Representatives, where this power should 
chiefly take an official form under constitutional limitations 



19 

and restraint, is gradually increasing its prerogatives, for- 
getting all checks upon its will, and taking possession by its 
standing committees of every department of the administration, 
with a grasp tliat there is no where either ability or inchnation 
to resist. 

But confidence is placed in the judicial department. It is 
said, and said truly, that the national judiciary is a citadel of im- 
pregnable strength. Within the range of its formidable battery it 
commands obedience and respect ; while those of the states like 
myrtillo towers in advance of the main position, delay the assault 
and repel the incursion of the most adventurous invader. The 
security is delusive. So long as they stand, the flag of the consti- 
tution will float proudly on their bastions. But they stand on the 
territory of the people. If public opinion cannot direct their 
artillery it dismantles it. If it cannot control the garrison it lev- 
els the ramparts with the adjacent soil ; not indeed by right but 
by power ; but when did supreme power ever take council of 
any thing but its will ? * 

Such is the potency of the popular principle, which resistless 
as lightning, melts even the materials intended to conduct it in 
safety. 

Instruction and of course education is the only instrument of 
security for public liberty against its dangerous movements, as a 
director of its inclinations, not as a check on its power ; but while 
the liberality and the wisdom of the generous and the eminent 
are devising schools and universities for this purpose an engine 
of mighty machinery confounds their calculations with an effect 
more summary than the laws, with results severer than the crim- 
inal code, and with an universality of operation as searchingj. 
penetrating and expansive as the element of steam. 

Li the desire of the people to acquire information, in the influ- 
ence to be obtained by those, who communicate it, and in that 
indisposition for exertion, which had rather receive opinions than 

*See debate in the Senate on the Judicial decisions of the United States 
Courts, 1822. 



20 

originate them, the periodical and daily press has established a 
weight in this community, as far beyond the anticipations of the ' 
founders of the government, as are the inventions of modern sci- 
ence over the dull limits of antiquity. A power is thus formed, 
which in the hands of educated and honest men is capable of 
vast force in improving and elevating the public mind ; and under 
the direction of the ignorant, the profligate or the intemperate, 
of adventurers, who seek notoriety for extravagant par?,dox, or 
retailers of scandal, whose poverty takes pay for the poison 
which they sell, corrupts the fountains of the public health and 
scatters the miasma of leprosy and pestilence. 

As regards individual, social and family happiness the domi- 
ciliary visits of this messenger of a modern inquisition is not un- 
worthy of a more extended inquiry than this occasion allows: on 
the state of public liberty its operation cannot be much increased 
without serious alarm. 

When the periodical and daily press may secure the election 
of a chief magistrate with the expectation of dividing in its own 
corps the ample donative that first gratitude and afterwards cus- 
tom may be willing to bestow, it will be here as it was in those 
degenerate days when the Roman world was exposed to sale 
by public auction, not a question whether Pertinax be worthy 
to retain his honors, or Julian to supercede him,* but which of 
them will pay the largest price in promises, in offices, or in 
gold. 

Such a power as that of the whole people exercised with its 
full weight upon all the institutions of government, and all the 
forms of public administration, and all the intimacies of private 
life can be safe only when it is intelligent, and beneficial only when 
its moral energy is in due proportion to its physical strength. 
The rash hand, which seized the promethean fire to animate the 
marble, raised a Demon instead of a man, by not giving him 
moral capacity ; theirs would be an act more extensively fatal, 
who having imparted to a people the principles of civil liberty, 

*lst rol. Gibbon's Rome, d 172. 



2] 

and thus enabled dieni to do as they please, should not provide 
a moral and intellectual energy, that they may please to do only 
what is right. 

Hence that ability of mind which is necessary to understand 
the true interests of the State, that firmness which maintains 
them, that coolness and steadiness which preserves itself against 
sudden excitement, and rash execution, that discrimination, 
which distinguishes between flatterers and friends, and that high 
mindedness, which honors integrity even in its errors more than 
duplicity and artifice when they may chance to be right, are ac- 
quirements which must designate a people who would preserve 
the invaluable privileges of self-government. And these acquire- 
ments must be general ; — they must form a public sentiment ; — 
they must be ingrafted into the pubhc mind ; and early, extensive 
and thorough education providing a moral and intellectual ali- 
ment that will assimilate with the constitution in these respects 
must be as extensive as the right of suffrage. 

That cultivation of mind, which merely controls the boldness 
of brutal strength, is not competent to advance the high destinies 
of a free people. Public liberty is intimately connected with a 
national literature. The general diffusion of knowledge can be 
secured only by high individual attainments — and the standard 
should be an elevated one, that the community may hold the na- 
tional literature as it does the national courage, the national 
strength, the national honor, a possession of which all may be 
proud, and each do something to maintain. 

There is infinite danger in a community like ours of giving a 
wrong direction to individual ambition. The emotion itself is a 
noble one ; inherent, expansive, aspiring. The decorations of 
nobility inspire it in some countries, great wealth and its con- 
comhants in others, but military glory is every where its idol 
and will every where collect its votaries unless some nobler ob- 
ject fastens itself on the affections of the people. National liter- 
ature may be made a successful rival of military renown. It 
may provide for the cultivation of the arts of peace and the im- 



22 

proveaicut of those of war. The advancenieiu of legislation 
and jurisprudence, the development of the resources and wealth 
of the nation, devising larger means of general prosperity and 
new arrangements for individual happiness, are as legitimate ob- 
jects of its attention as the cultivation of poetry and the fine arts 
to which it is sometimes supposed to be confined. 

When the public mind is engaged in the advancement of a 
national literature it commands the exertions of genius and learn- 
ing ; and thus the richness and softness of their coloring is thrown 
upon the community itself. The fierceness and rudeness which 
seek occasion for strife, and promote foreign war and domestic 
dissention, are softened and smoothed, and a better direction giv- 
en to the public feeling, which is taught more thoroughly to ad- 
mire and more ardently to cherish the institutions of the country. 

It is not a wise economy, which in a country like ours pre- 
vents the endowment of high seminaries of learning ; nor is the 
argument against their republican utihty w^ell founded in fact, 
that because their advantages cannot be enjoyed directly by 
every member of the community they are exclusively the privi- 
leges of their immediate beneficiaries. 

The advancement of a free people in intelligence, the pro- 
gress of mind and refinement of manners among them are ob- 
jects of as much public consequence as the increase of the general 
wealth ; probably more ; — for a poor people may be free, an ig- 
norant people cannot continue so. But neither learning nor 
wealth can be equally distributed. Under the best order of 
things there must be some poor and some ignorant. — Yet the poor 
and the rich are required in every community to preserve those 
channels by which property is acquired, and to maintain the ac- 
quisitions which only one class possesses for the common benefit 
it secures to all ; so the wise and the uneducated are bound to 
•give facilities according to their means for the enlargement and 
■preservation of the intellectual property of the public. 

The obligation in this respect — fellow citizens — is peculiarly 
yours. The high and honorable rank you hold in the Union 



23 

imposes it upon you. Your liberal system of general education, 
your early taste for intellectual improvement, your state of free- 
dom which is not shaded by the darkness of domestic slavery, 
your eminent means ia point of wealth, which even under present 
embarrassments hold an enviable superiority over most other sec- 
tions of the country, the habits of our community ac(|uired in 
schools and churches, which adorn every village of the Com- 
monwealth, and some progress already made and promised, have 
consigned to your care this glorious task, that as you began the 
revolution and supported it, so you may erect the first pillars of 
a national literature, and preserve in its temples your own and 
your country's honor to the last syllable of recorded time. 

The preservation of public liberty depends on preserving the 
character of eminent public men. To great minds honorable 
fame is a motive and rew^ard for exertions, which neither power 
nor wealth could of themselves command. Thus it was in the 
revolution. Thus it has been in the great crises of the country. 
Thus it may always be if the people protect the reputation ac- 
quired in their service. 

The spirit of detraction is an evil spirit, which infests the land. 
That universal desecration of character, of which in the late can- 
vass for President most lamentable instances have been given by 
all parties, should no longer be tolerated. It should be under- 
stood that we will not refer to posterity the payment of that 
praise due to talents and virtue exerted in the public service ; 
that we will no longer give the rivals of our statesmen the ad- 
vantage of upbraiding them with a want of estimation by their 
immediate constituents. Massachusetts has sent into every 
department of the public service both of the State and the Na- 
tion men of as great minds and as pure hearts as ever counselled 
for the happiness of a people ; but she has too frequently de- 
prived herself of the benefit of their exertions, by suffering their 
characters to be abused at home, and neglecting that maternal 
care of their reputation, which her more politic sisters have used 
in their own case with signal advantage. 



24 

Public liberty depends on the opinion of its vitality. It is 
the duty of every American to inculcate a belief of its immor- 
tal nature. He may not encourage feverish apprehensions. 
He may not indulge in prophecies of evil, which sometimes 
contribute to their own accomplishment. He is not required to 
be insensible to danger, but it is for preparation and not for 
alarm. Times of depression are not those of despair. None 
could be more discouraging than in the infancy of the republic ; 
but the patriots of the revolution stayed themselves on the 
goodness of their cause, the greatness and grandeur of their 
purposes, the enlargement of the moral powers of their race, 
which was the object of their pursuits, and the consequent diffusion 
of general happiness which was to be elaborated by their indi- 
vidual sufferings. 

It is our equal duty to keep up the life of hope ; to restrain 
that sickly imagination, which in the shadows of occasional 
darkness conjures up the ghost of ruin, and peoples the politi- 
cal atmosphere with images of terror. 

It cannot be that tKe good providence of God will desert us 
if we do not desert our duty. It cannot be that the soul which 
once had strength enough to break away from the fetters of ig- 
norance and despotism can be reclaimed again as their slave. 
There is an enlarging, a purifying, a preserving spirit in civil 
and religious liberty, which like the immortal nature of man, is 
destined to a never ending existence. 

The present time brings with it both opportunity and demand 
for exercising this paramount duty. The administration of the 
general government has been changed in opposition to the almost 
unanimous vote of New England, and while as yet its definitive 
policy is not fully disclosed, enough is apparent to excite con- 
sternation and regret. 

But the influence of New England cannot be destroyed, if 
she be faithful to her principles, her interests and her fame, and 
where her influence is felt there is liberty. Her diffusive intel- 
ligence, her abundant wealtli, her hardy industry and adventu- 



25 

rous enterprise are the elements of a power which no adminis- 
tration may despise with impunity, nor distnrb even without con- 
sequences fatal to itself. 

Let her maintain her place in the confederacy without fac- 
tious hostility. Submitting to the voice of the people, which 
removed her own candidates from authority, it is her duty, in 
the spirit of the constitution, to wage no war of extermination 
against their successors, merely because they are not the favor- 
ites of her choice. 

But while on the one hand that partizan temper, which for its 
own personal aggrandizement would put down an administration 
even if it was as pure as the angels of light, belongs not to the dig- 
nity of the New England character, so on the other hand a 
prompt adhesion to the powers that be, merely because they 
exist, beyond a respectful obedience to the laws, is little capa- 
ble of being reconciled to the duty of a public spirited and en- 
lightened community. 

Let the administration be judged by their measures, and 
wait the development of their measures for the means of a dis- 
passionate opinion. Distrust is allowable, for the mode, in 
which they acquired power, is not calculated to give confidence 
in its useful exercise ; and its first movements, under the name 
of reform, look like payment from the public treasury for individ- 
ual exertions in a successful cause. But New England has high- 
er interests in the general government than the participation of its 
emoluments or office. If the great concerns of her commerce, 
her manufactures and her agriculture be protected ; if peace be 
secured by wise counsels, and the honor of the nation maintained 
in its diplomacy, she will look with proud indifference on the 
distribution of executive patronage. 

It is impossible to destroy her title to consideration until the 
influences of the moral world are suspended, and the laws of na- 
ture itself shall be changed. Out of the very arrangements to 
diminish her inherent power are generated ample causes for its 
speedy restitution. The successors of Alexander contended 
4 



■^ 



26 



among themselves for empire, and here, also, ambitious men an- 
ticipate the time when tlie chair of the presidency will be a 
subject of new competition. "* 

The umpirage of New England will assign its honors to the 
most worthy. He who may most advance the great interests of 
the nation, who places his claims, not on local prejudices, or 
sectional feelings, or the partizan temper of intriguing men, but 
on liberal exertions for the prosperity of the nation, on fidelity to 
the constitution and the great institutions of the country ; he 
Avhose large and comprehensive policy rises above tlie misty 
atmosphere of personal contention, and looks out on the broad 
ocean he is appointed to navigate, with a consciousness of his 
immense responsibility to all the citizens of this increasing em- 
pire, to posterity whose destiny he may controul, and to the 
cause of civil and religious liberty embarked under the protec- 
tion of the American people, whether such a man be found on 
this or the other side of the Potomac, whether he dwell on the 
shores of the Atlantic or the farthest mountains of the west, lie 
will command the confidence and receive tlie support of New 
England. It will be her proud prerogative to decide between 
conflicting claims, and the knowledge that her confidence must 
be won for success and can be won only by merit, will ensure 
her that respect and consideration which ambitious men pay to 
power, wise men to intelligence, honorable men to high charac- 
ter, and the whole people to that chivakous and gallant bearnig, 
winch spurning the paltry advantages of sectional interest, is de- 
voted to the permanent prosperity of this vast Republic, 



